Off the Menu: Stories Of Glorious Restaurant Smartasses

[Editor’s Note: This is late thru no fault of the illustrious Mr. Pinkham. We took Labor Day off like good Americans and forgot to hit “publish.” We regret the error.]

Hello, and welcome back to Off The Menu, where we explore the craziest stories about food from my email inbox.This week, we’ve got one of the most fun categories: stories of hardcore clapbacks in restaurants.As always, these are real stories from real readers.

Zelda Morgan:

The casino Charming Charlie’s is off the Las Vegas Strip and without all the new contraptions like ventilation or proper AC. It’s my favorite. I go to get the $2.99 breakfast. I seat myself and when the waitress comes over I’m a little disturbed by the fact she’s standing next to me facing forward to the wall. Perhaps she has a slipped retina? I’m not here to judge.

Then she opens her mouth “WHAT YOU WANT TO DRINK!?” She screams. Enough to where people look over. Feeling confused but feeling like maybe she is autistic, or having a rough time in life I timidly reply “water with lemon pl –“

“YOU GET NO LEMON!” I stare at her while she stares at the wall. Did I just get Soup Nazi’d with citrus? She comes back and slams my water down so hard it splashes all over the table.

I watch her take another table’s order. She had a soft smile and polite laughter. I wonder for a second if it was a race or age thing? She was an elderly Asian woman and I was a young white girl who came from a generation of entitled pricks. I was dressed in a tank top and a long tie-dyed skirt, possibly brushed hair and no makeup. Maybe she thought I was on drugs? I wish I had been.

She comes to take my order. Again refusing to look at me, she yells to the wall, “ORDER NOW!”

“Breakfast sp –“

“HOW YOU LIKE EGGS!”

“Over med — “

“HASHBROWN WHAT TOAST!”

“What k –“

She yells the selection of bread with as much as enthusiasm as an AK-47. The brutality of the pronunciation of rye exclaimed her true disdain for my existence. I muttered something.

“MEAT!”

“No meat plea –“

“NO DISCOUNT! MEAT IN PRICE WHAT MEAT!”

“That’s fine, I just don’t want the meat!”

“YOU PAY FULL PRICE! $2.99 NO LESS!!”

“That’s fine! I’m a vegetarian!”

She walks away. At that moment I think I fell in love with her. She slammed down my food thirty minutes later, never looking at me, never refilling my lemon-less water. I paid that $2.99. I left her a $10 tip. Weirdest dining experience of my life.

Now that I write it out it’s totally possible she thought I was a hooker. I was easily 20 years the junior of anyone else there. Who knows.

Jon August:

One couple left 30 dollars in the book on a $29.50 tab. The waitress drew my attention to it, not for me to do anything, but just pointing out that they were cheap. I pulled 50 cents out of my pocket and ran to the parking lot.

“Sir! Sir! You forgot your change!”

“Oh, I left that for the waitress.”

“As a tip?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh, okay. So a 50 cent tip?”

“Ummm, yeah.”

“Was there anything wrong with the service? I have to ask, we need to know if waitresses need to be retrained.” (This waitress had been there for years, she was awesome.)

“No, she was great. I’m just not much of a tipper.”

“Okay. Well, good news! I bet her ten bucks you wouldn’t admit that it was a tip! So tonight, you’re kind of a great tipper!”

Roger Freeland:

Back in the 80’s in Milton, FL a high school buddy of mine was working at a Tastee Freeze with a few of other good friends, making roughly $2.00 bucks an hour — the tipping wage at the time. [Editor’s Note: Still the tipping wage in most states, it’s worth noting, as always.] Given the weak compensation package, the crew pretty much had free reign to be as obnoxious as humanly possible.

One night, I popped in to say hello, and a woman came in to order a sandwich. In the process of this, she asked if they had any “lite” mayonnaise. With a faux confused look, my buddy said “Huh?” and then scooped some mayonnaise into his left hand and lifted his arm up and down slightly, as if to check its weight. After a few seconds of this, he looked her straight in the eye and said, “I’m sorry, ma’am, we only have the heavy stuff.”

Nadia Taylor:

I worked at Lou Malnati’s (famous Chicago Deep Dish place) in downtown Chicago for many years. During the summer, we would get slammed with tourists staying at nearby hotels. We would give hotel concierges a coupon for a free cookie pizza when they would send customers over. Every year, around the end of May/beginning of June, the Hilton hosts International Mr. Leather and the restaurant would be flooded with big men wearing little leather outfits. I loved IML weekend — the restaurant would go from a typical family restaurant to a daddy-moto leather night real quick.

While the restaurant was flooded with IML people, we were also still getting a lot of the typical family customers. One night, while hosting, a family of four came in to eat with their cookie pizza coupon. They handed me their coupon, and the father asked me, looking disgusted, “Is this your normal clientele?” I then summoned my best customer service skills and the brightest smile and answered sweetly “Yes, sir.”

I sat them in between a leather bear and a group of men wearing assless leather chaps.

Craig Thomas:

Many years ago, my brother-in-law Rob ran a pub/guest house in deepest Cornwall, England. It was a gorgeous place with 15th-century foundations, and a structure mainly dating to the 16th/17th Century. The beer was good, the floors were wonky and the food was pretty fresh. Like the pub, Rob was “proppur” Cornish, naturally spoke like a pirate and didn’t suffer fools gladly. Rob was happy to put up with the “emmets” (tourists) in summer to have sufficient to survive through winter, and to encourage custom at his inn he ran a small menu made from fresh, local ingredients.

One day about 10am a group of tourists arrived looking for refreshment. They ordered drinks and asked if there was something to eat. My mother, who was helping out, patiently explained that the kitchen was in the middle of prep for lunch but could rustle up some crab sandwiches or a decent pasty, although the pasty would be cooked from frozen.

The mention of crab began the cross questioning: was it local? Was it freshly cooked? Was it really fresh? Because (of course) all the party had sensitive stomachs.

As it so happened, any crab would be particularly fresh, because a local fisherman had just dropped off a bongo (a large drum) of crab about 15 minutes before the group had arrived and the first ones were already in the pot. One particular gentleman was dismissive of any claims of it being fresh, asserting that at best it would be the “usual frozen trash,” and said he would “do” the landlord for false advertising. Diplomatically, my mother went out the back to get Rob, who was already wondering who was creating the fuss. Rob told her to go back and say he would be out in a moment. True to his word, Rob arrived very swiftly with a drying cloth over one arm to lend a professional appearance. He asked what the problem was and the know-it-all, claiming he knew all about the tricks of the trade, started to give Rob a lecture.

Waiting patiently, Rob was finally able to say, “Is ‘is fresh enough fur ‘ee?” and pulled a 9″ cock crab from under the towel and placed it on the table, which caused a lady to give a little scream. Know-all said, “Don’t worry, it’s only plastic” and poked the beast with one finger.

The crab, understandably annoyed, took umbrage and snapped its claws onto a handbag and refused to let go. The tourists fled, one coming back after an hour to get the handbag, which Rob eventually had eventually freed from the claws. Everybody left at the pub was very happy, except for the crab, which made a delightful salad for the staff.

Do you have any food-related stories you’d like to see included in Off The Menu?Feel free to submit them toWilyUbertrout@gmail.com. New submissions are always welcome!(Seriously, you don’t need to ask if I want you to send them in, the answer is always yes).If you’d like to stay up to date with OTM news, my Twitterhandle is@EyePatchGuy.

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All crabs are that mean, & understandably so, what with being eaten, etc.

Robert Cummings

Nothing against the leather fellas, but i hope the section seating the assless chaps was thoroughly cleaned…

SessileRaptor

If there’s any justice in the world then “Don’t worry, it’s only plastic” dude’s cause of death will be “Mauled to death by bear that he promised was actually two park employees in a costume.”

Pudman

Are your ‘fresh crabs’ gluten free?

Frank Underboob

Pfft. I won’t settle for anything less than glutenous crabs, myself.

Pudman

As long as they’re free-range, conflict free & artisanally sourced local glutenous crabs, I’mma right there w/ ya Frank. Totally.

Rob Hoffmann

Are they crunchy? I’m allergic to crunchy.

Pudman

As long as they don’t swim like ‘THIS” [makes hand swimming movement!], you should be OK. right? And get some scopolamine patches, too.

Stephen Schenck

“had free reign”

The word is “rein.” Reign means something else.

TexasNativeChris

The crab story would be better if it had been a monogrammed crab…

I’ll see myself out.

Pudman

Crabs are naturally insulated, so they come previously monogrammed, right?

theblackdog

ALL CHAPS ARE ASSLESS! IF THEY COVERED YOUR ASS THEN THEY’RE NOT CHAPS, THEY’RE PANTS! *runs away screaming into the night throwing monogrammed thermoses filled with saved bread everywhere*

Cat Cafe for the Prosecution

BUT NOT RED! WE’RE ALLERGIC TO RED!

jeneria

Not only that, but is that sanitary? I mean, can you wear chaps into a restaurant and get service?

theblackdog

I’m going to guess that depends on health and nudity laws there. However for events like that the dudes usually will cover up enough when they go outside the hotel.

FreightTrainBro

Pinkham! Glad to see you’re back. I was quite confused come Monday when there wasn’t a post. Figured, hey he took the day off. Good for him. Kept checking and checking, figured maybe he just wasn’t going to post this week. Glad to see you didn’t forget about us! Anyways, hope you had a nice holiday.

I am kind of disappointed by this weeks stories though, normally I love them all but these were midly-amusing at best 🙁 And I feel horrible saying this, after having followed you from site to site and constantly reading people’s posts complaining about the quality of the posts declining while not necessarily feeling the same way myself. The best one out of all of these was Nadia’s post about the IML people, and that was very tame. Hopefully you’ll have something spicy for us next week!

I was really let down by the first story, it built up like it was going somewhere and ended with her just eating her meal, paying it with a much too big of a tip for the experience she had, and that’s it. Now that I look back, I don’t see how this has to do with anyone being a smartass at all.

Cat Cafe for the Prosecution

I thought the Cornwall story was awesome, and the first story was very entertaining.

HiHoSilver

Yeah the first story was pretty confusing. What WAS that waitresses problem?

John Doe

Well not to go the race route, but depending on where the lady was from that can be kind of normal. Customer service like that, short of the yelling and staring at the wall part (thats a big what the fuck is going on to me) is kind of typical. Asian people tend to be on the, lets get this done so I can go back to what I was doing attitude. Not meant to be rude that’s just sometimes normal. That being said that lady MAY have been on something lol. I have always had generally good customer service from asian folks but yeah it does tend to be rapid fire like that in my experience depending on the place.

Oh, Because She’s Dead

Well, except that the waitress apparently was normal and polite to the next table– so I don’t think it was a cultural thing. She must have had some sort of issue with the customer.

And yeah, I don’t get why she would have given her a huge tip, or why this story even belongs in this week’s theme…

Frank The Rat

I love the boss gave the wait staff a $10 tip as I’m sure the rest of us did. But the moral, as usual, is lost on the clueless.

Chris Lehmann

Seriously, where are the poop and vomit stories? Somebody send him some!!

You can wash my remains off the brick wall I slammed into at the unexpected end of this post.

Alexandra Linington

I love the Crab story. Can’t get fresher than ‘still moving’. The tourist was an arsehole. Totally got what he deserved.
The first story confuses me – why wouldn’t you say something about the attitude? Why didn’t any OTHER employee notice?

cypher20

If you’re “just not much of a tipper” then only go to eat fast food. Tipping is just what you do, it’s part of the meal and yeah, it sucks and it’s not much fun but you need to account for it and consider it part of the cost of eating out. I don’t know why people have trouble with this simple concept even if you’ve never worked in food service before.

Twil42

Damn right. If you can’t afford to tip, you can’t afford to eat out. Maybe someday all waitstaff will have a mandated living wage in the US, but until such time you tip like a damned decent human being. To do any less is shortchanging your bill.

Cuvis

This. I don’t like tipping, I think it’s a barbaric practice, and I will be happy when it’s abolished altogether. And yet, I tip, because I want the people who serve me to be able to keep a roof over their heads and food in their bellies.

Holly Gofightly

“I’m not much of a tipper” AND? Your personal feelings on tipping don’t change the fact that servers still make barely minimum wage. I love when people try to dismiss their shittiness as some sort of personal preference.

Twil42

People like that are why we need either a living wage for waitstaff, or mandatory gratuity on checks.

Edward Anderson

Might I gently suggest that maybe we possibly don’t need a weekly comment thread referencing all the old punchlines? Just saying, the inside jokes are inscrutable to newcomers, and rapidly losing their punch for those of us who have been around from the beginning.

tnebert

I was in Chicago over Memorial Day weekend a few years ago. I was unaware of the IML event until I walked down to see Buckingham Fountain…then I was *very* aware and I must say it made the trip more enjoyable than anticipated. The best part was quietly critiquing various outfits with my teenage nephew, and his reaction when my mother joined in. “Grandma, eww!” “What? I’m old and married, but I’m not DEAD!” *moment of stunned silence* “Okay, fair enough.”

TF04

I’m sorry…in which part of Story 1 was there meant to be smartass…anything? That was just violent and it made me feel a little unsafe.

Ivan

Where. Is. New. Pinkham????

gigitastic

See I would have let the crab live as my pub’s new bouncer.

Lasenna

Yes! That crab was the hero of the story. For that performance I would have had to grant a pardon and return him/her to the water.